Working on it.

GMail. Stupid.

Making sure you are logged out of all your Google accounts go to http://gmail.com. You want another email account and being the savvy net user you see that you can check availability of a name. Having signed up at places like AIM, Yahoo, MSN etc it saves hassle to get that name checked first. So you put in all the names and each time it says it has been taken but offers you the “random number on the end” crap each time too. Ever hopeful you plough on until all of a sudden it gives you a captcha you need to solve before you can check another. Annoying but you have to. Study the letters, enter them carefully and click ‘Check availability’. In nice red letters it said you got it wrong. You know you did not so you check again, enter carefully again and again you are wrong. Like wtf? One last time. The swirly letters appear and you are sure they say I D I O T S so being super careful you type in I D I O T Sand again it tells you you are wrong.

It’s because there are 2 captchas on the page. One right at the bottom. I can’t see it and my monitor is pretty large. Do they give any hint that you should scroll down? No. Do they highlight other boxes in red to hint that completing them may help? No. Does the page move down to the other captcha? No. Do they make the big assumption that everyone will always complete the whole form before checking for a free name? Yes. Can you simply open another browser and continue battering away for new names? Yes. Has this measure stopped the millions of gmail spammers? Not.one.little.bit.